1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an on-line, interactive, and fully integrated benefit-driven value exchange and settlement program that monitors, evaluates, and manages economic and personal benefits and executes functions to produce and acquire the maximum or preferred benefit items for users by guiding and automating appropriate payment and settlement actions.
More particularly, the present invention relates to the fields of payment and settlement processing systems and incentive award processing systems and, more exactly, to payment, discount, and incentive supply and acquisition functions that may be established and executed to produce, identify, compare, determine, select, acquire, and utilise available and preferred incentives and awards and, consequently, produce related payment or redemption instructions, options, or accounts, and such other relevant account items, for delivery to related parties to affect actions, transactions, and also user, consumer, merchant, award supplier, and payment and award issuer accounts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Payment and settlement processing systems and incentive award processing systems are well known. For example, the conventional credit card transaction systems and incentive award processing systems involve a cardholder, a merchant, a credit card processor, a credit card issuer, and an incentive or benefit award provided by a payment, discount, or incentive award supplier. Generally, the cardholder presents goods or services to a merchant at a point-of-sale workstation where the merchant determines a purchase price and requests payment or settlement from the cardholder. The cardholder then selects one of the credit cards in their possession that will earn an incentive award, such as frequent flier airline miles. The cardholder then delivers the credit card to the merchant in order to make a payment for the products and receive the airline miles.
The merchant then processes the cardholder's credit card through a point-of-sale workstation which is configured to transmit transaction information such as the amount of the transaction, the credit card number, etc., to the credit card issuer either directly through a network connection or indirectly through a credit card processing service. If the cardholder's account is in a state that is sufficient to accept charges contemplated by the transaction, the credit card issuer will authorise the transaction by generating and transmitting an authorisation code to the merchant.
After receipt of the authorisation code, the point-of-sale workstation often prints a sales draft or receipt. Thereafter, the cardholder signs the draft acknowledging their obligation to reimburse the credit card issuer for the amount of the transaction. At this point, the merchant, through their acquiring financial institution, can collect payment for goods or services from the credit card issuer and the cardholder will receive their purchased items as well as being issued the frequent flier airline miles according to the “then” prevailing incentive award terms and conditions. An example of such an incentive processing program is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,412.
The aforementioned payment and settlement processing system and incentive award processing system approach is functionally limited in that: (a) making a payment is the primary goal while maximising the incentive benefits acquired or utilised is a secondary or ignored undertaking, (b) the selection of incentives and awards is generally based on a static “best award recalled” by the consumer instead of reference to a dynamic and extensive “best awards available” catalog of benefits with meaningful valuations and rankings, (c) only “in-possession” payment or settlement mechanisms may be used at the time of a transaction (e.g., the need for pre-established and signed credit cards, paper-based discount coupons, downloaded electronic mail messages with digital-based coupon codes in the consumer's physical possession), and (d) there is an absence of customised, standardised, and competitive benefit information based on consumer preferences, equivalent valuations, and the most current overall terms and conditions available from various and multiple incentive and award suppliers aggregated at the time of an action or transaction.
Accordingly, consumers seldom, if ever, receive the maximum or best incentives and awards available when using the prior art due to such reasons as a lack of consumer interest in managing incentives, a lack of easy and effective benefit rankings, and the consequences of a forgetful memory.
As such, the prior art has the disadvantage that the selection and use of benefits is limited by the amount of time and effort a consumer wants to invest in managing their incentive and award undertakings. An additional disadvantage is that consumers have no way of comparing and determining the best benefits when different awards are available. For example, a consumer may be presented with obtaining either 750 frequent flier airline miles or 425 bonus points and not be able to readily compare the values of such different awards.
Consumers face a growing assortment of incentives, rewards, coupons, and marketing promotions. In general, consumers are unable or unwilling to review the range of benefits, identify which ones apply to them, and then determine and remember how to pay to get the best values. People prefer to save money and would consider using incentives to do so, but a comprehensive and convenient method does not exist. Shoppers demonstrate their coupon-clipping avoidance behaviour by redeeming only 2% of available coupons. This “benefit bypass” causes the consumer to pay more and get less.
Another disadvantage is that benefit acquisition and utilisation is dependent on the consumer knowing about benefit opportunities and then remembering to use a particular credit card or to prepare earned awards, such as converting points into certificates, for benefit redemption in order to receive any utility value. For example, if a consumer knows about and remembers to use their American Express credit card account, assuming they have one, to pay for a rental car then the consumer can decline the additional collision insurance coverage since it is a benefit provided by American Express.
The consumer is further limited in that they can only make use of conventional incentive award search and discovery methods (e.g., reviewing bulk mail ads, television, print media, Internet ads, Internet incentive sites such as DealTime and ValPak.com, reading verbose “fine-print” account contracts that explain benefits, word-of-mouth) to piece together a juxtaposition of bewildering information. After such discovery, the consumer must then employ undependable reminders (e.g., sticky notes) to use the appropriate payment card or discount coupon for a particular transaction and then according to an incentive award's specific terms and conditions. A representative sample of Internet incentive and coupon search sites include: DealTime Incorporated available at http://www.dealtime.com; uBid Incorporated available at http://www.ubid.com; SalesHound.com Incorporated available at http://www.saleshound.com; ClipACoupon.com Incorporated available at http://www.clipacoupon.com; CoolSavings.com Incorporated available at http://www.coolsavings.com; ValPak at http://www.valpak.com; MasterCard International Incorporated providing the MasterCard Exclusives program available at http://www.mastercard.com/exclusives; and American Express Company providing the Offer Zone program available at http://americanexpress.com.
A further disadvantage is that a consumer needs to have credit cards, coupons, or other awards “in-hand” for presentation at the time of a transaction. For example, the prior art punishes a consumer who forgets their merchant loyalty card by making them pay a non-discounted price.
In addition, the prior art deals with consumers in a singular fashion and provides only generic incentive awards (e.g., two airline miles for every dollar spent) to every individual instead of personalising or aggregating consumer transactions for “strength-in-numbers” and soliciting competitive and customised benefits that may exceed the generic incentive awards.
Furthermore, consumers and incentive award suppliers are significantly limited in their ability to interact with each other during a transaction in ways that would enhance value to both parties. While consumers may know of and might use conventional incentive award search and discovery mechanisms to review incentive awards, such methods provide virtually no value to the consumer during a transaction since conventional methods only reflect historically published incentive awards and related terms and, more importantly, allow no interaction with the incentive award supplier's current zone of possible agreement, best negotiable alternatives, or dynamic business objectives as they relate to performance achievement goals and award concession limits at the time of an action or transaction. Although portable and pervasive personal digital assistants and computing devices (e.g., Palm's Series VII, Research In Motion's Blackberry, Sprint's Internet-enabled cellular telephones) may provide convenient access to review incentive awards while standing in a check-out line, such ultra mobile devices and systems simply provide information to the consumer without providing any additional functionality. Consumers suffer burdens due to this limitation since they cannot easily, conveniently, and effectively filter, evaluate, and avail themselves of the pertinent and extensive opportunities and benefits that incentive award suppliers are willing to provide to them.
For example, the Internet World Wide Web site of Quicken.com (i.e., http://www.quicken.com) provided by Intuit Incorporated allows consumers to search and display comparative information regarding credit cards and their associated incentive award programs. The Quicken system allows a consumer to identify credit cards that are offering various incentive awards ranging from the “lowest” introductory APR to the “best” frequent flyer airline mile program. With the aid of the Quicken site, a consumer can request comparative product data and then receive further information regarding the specific details of a credit card and its incentive award program. While helpful, such information retrieval systems do not allow the consumer to interact with the incentive award suppliers, either in individual or aggregate transaction forums, to enhance the available incentive awards, to mix-and-match various award combinations, or to create custom incentive awards. In addition, the consumer must manually review and evaluate each award program's terms and conditions, such as topics of fixed versus variable interest rates. This system merely supplies information to the consumer without providing any additional functionality. For example, a consumer is not able to utilise any “Quicken-identified” advantages when they move through a checkout line if a more desirable benefit program requires obtaining a new credit card in order to settle their purchase with the cashier.
Furthermore, the prior art is limited in that its conventional payment and settlement processing systems, incentive award processing systems and methods, and incentive award search and discovery mechanisms provide, at best, a simple “got it, don't got it” comparison of benefit features, and as such they do not provide active and dynamic benefit competitions. The difference being that the former provides information for review while the latter provides reviewed information.
Another limitation is that while organisations, such as eCredit.com Incorporated, offer methods to connect businesses to financing partners in order to provide real-time credit to consumers, the financing of a purchase at the time of the purchase is generally based on a financier's acceptance of risk, and such related conditions. Such methods do not evaluate the consumer's desire for preferred incentives and awards and the commensurate means (e.g., payment accounts, award redemptions) available to acquire such incentives and awards. Although the purchase is financed, the consumer acquires no additional benefits since there is no knowledge of the consumer's benefit preferences.
Previously proposed enhancements have not allowed consumers to expose, transmit and have their incentive award preferences and conditions considered at the time of an action or transaction to the payment or incentive award suppliers using the conventional credit card transaction system, payment and settlement processing system, and incentive award processing system infrastructures such as credit card stations, point-of-sale workstations, personal computers, or portable computing devices using any processing or connection means such as payment networks or the Internet. More particularly, previously proposed enhancements to credit card, payment, settlement, and incentive award systems have not allowed consumers and incentive award suppliers to directly adjust incentive award parameters at the time of an action or transaction that may affect the determination and production of settlement solutions, actions, and related payment or redemption accounts, and such other relevant account items, for delivery to related parties to affect actions and transactions and also user, consumer, merchant, award supplier, and payment and award issuer accounts.
Each of the aforementioned systems and processes require considerable time and effort on the part of the consumer if they seek to obtain benefits. As such, the need for a consumer to search for incentive awards either manually or using additional systems and processes can be costly, can diminish the intended value of the incentive awards requiring such additional time, effort, systems and processes, and can limit the intended benefits to consumers.
It is the goal of the inventor to make incentives, awards, and payments adaptto people, instead of the other way around, and to integrate them into our transaction surroundings so we may take advantage of their economic power and satisfaction without really thinking about them.
Accordingly, the shortcomings associated with the prior art have heretofore not been adequately addressed. The present invention addresses such limitations by providing a system and processing approach that have not previously been proposed.